Improvement in turbines



D. B. FLINT.

TURBINE;

Fi i.

Patented Jani4, 1876.

UNITED STATES PATENT QFFICE.

DAVID B. FLINT, OF ORANGE, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO RODNEY HUNT MACHINE COMPANY, OF SAME PLACE.

IMPROVEMENT IN TURBINES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent N 0. 171,656, dated January 4, 1876; application filed October 5, 1875.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that 1, DAVID B. FLINT, of

Orange, of the county of Franklin, of the State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Turbines; and do hereby declare the same to be fully described in the following specification and represented inthe accompanying drawings, ot which Figure 1 denotes a front elevation, Fig. 2 a bottom view, and Fig. 3 a transverse section, of a turbine provided with my invention or improvement in its wheel. Fig. 4 is a side elevation of the wheel.

The drawings showa double-acting turbine--that is, one which operates by direct impulse and by reaction of the water.

In such drawings, the rotary wheel of the turbine is represented at A, provided as usual with a vertical shaft, B, whose foot is pivoted in an adjustable pivot, a, supported in a socket-piece, b, which is connected with the guide 0 by means of a series of curved arms, 0 c c c, or what is usually termed a spider. The annular gate D, when in its lowest position, encompasses the upper or water-receivin g part of the wheel, and plays vertically within the case or cap E. To this cap is applied the mech-' anism for raising and lowering the gate. The guide C, a horizontal section of which andthe wheel is given in Fig. 5, surrounds the waterreceiving part of the wheel'only, or that portion within and above the ring at that encompasses the buckets e e c of the wheel. The body part. of the wheel consists of a tapering and tubular director, f, formed in vertical section, as shown in Fig. 3. From the outer tapering and cylindrical surface of the said director, there projects a series of buckets, e e e. That part of each bucket which extends above the plane of the ring at is arranged radially, or about so,

. with the vertical axis of the wheel, while the rest or portion of the bucket that extends down from the ring is curved, both vertically and horizontally, and inclined to the horizon, the whole being as represented. in the drawings, and in part in Fig. 6, which is a horizontal section of the discharging portion of the wheel, all of which extends below the guide C, such guide consisting of two flat and parallel rings, g g, and a series of vertical plates or chutes, h h, arranged as represented. The guide, when the turbine is in use, rests in the bottom of the flume, the wheel A projecting through such bottom and into a clear space below such for the escape of the water.

From the above it will be seen that the wheel receives the water in directions centripetally or from its periphery, more or less, toward its axis, and that it discharges the water centrifugally both downward and horizontally outward, whereby it can more readily free itself, or the water can more easily escape than it would were the discharge to be inward or tosentially as set forth, viz., to project from the director radially, or about so, and extend both above and below the hoop, and where below such hoop to curve both transversely and longitudinally in order to receive the water from the guide in directions centripetally or inward and discharge it ccntrifugally both downward at inclinations to the horizon, and outward horizontally or thereabout, all essentially as specified.

DAVID B. FLINT.

Witnesses:

R. H. EDDY, J. R. SNOW. 

